BACKGROUND AND AIM
Combination treatments of interferon-alpha (IFN) and ribavirin (RBV) are more effective than those of IFN alone in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. However, mechanisms of the action of the combination regimen are not well understood. To elucidate the viral genetic basis of IFN plus RBV combination therapy, genetic variabilities of HCV-1b were analyzed.
METHODS
We performed pair-wise comparisons of full-length HCV genomic sequences in three patients' sera before and after… CONTINUE READING